Apartment residents want to know why their water was shut off

CHARLOTTE — Dozens of tenants at the Renaissance West apartments said their water was shut off all of Friday without a concrete reason.

“Oh, nothing is coming out now,” said resident Deborah Wilson. “It was a little stream of water coming out but now nothing is coming out.”

Wilson has lived at the west Charlotte apartment complex for one year. She said the water was turned off sometime after her morning shower.

“I went to wash my hands after messing with some things in the refrigerator,” Wilson said. “I thought there was maybe an issue going on.”

“Well right here, (unit) 3620, also across from here, we don’t have water, as well,” said resident Sameeka Sidberry. “And it’s been like that since 8 this morning.”

Residents reached out to the office and found out it was closed.

A note on the door read, “The leasing office will be closed until further notice. We are currently working with the city of Charlotte to resolve the buildings without water.”

Several residents said that they called 311 to ask if there was anything they could do to get the water turned back on. The city said there wasn’t anything the residents could do about it and it was up to management.

“311 told me they didn’t pay the water bill, so I’m like, how didn’t they pay the water bill?” said Angie, a resident.

The city would not confirm if that was the issue.

For now, residents who want to shower must go somewhere else, toilets must be manually filled to flush, and for women with children, that’s a challenge.

“This is a mixed community,” said Angie. “Some of these kids don’t have or some of these parents can’t afford to go to hotels. Half of these people don’t have families to where they can go crash.”

“I pay my rent on time, so I feel like we all need to be compensated in some way,” Wilson said.

Residents hope their water will be turned on by Monday and hope management will be more forthcoming about what happened.

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